Free Republic

Is that on sale? White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre received social media scorn Tuesday after she accidentally called Russia’s Nord Stream 1 pipeline “Nordstrom” — as in the department store. The slip of the tongue came as President Biden’s chief spokeswoman accused Russia of fueling an energy crisis in Europe by shutting down the pipeline, which supplies natural gas to large swathes of the continent. “What we see Russia is doing, we’ve been very clear about this, they’re using energy, they’re weaponizing energy,” Jean-Pierre told reporters during her regular press briefing. “One of the things that has been out...

"Folks are paying for gas, paying for groceries. We need a solution to it" and other gems.

While Mike Pence was lauded by Democrats — and widely criticized by the president and the Republican base — for his refusal to overturn the results of the election won by Joe Biden in 2020, it turns out that a different vice president may have been responsible for the decision. In the upcoming book Peril, Robert Costa and Bob Woodward write that then-Vice President Pence reached out to 74-year-old Dan Quayle — who served as vice president from 1989 to 1993 under President George H. W. Bush — in the waning days of the Trump presidency. "Over and over, Pence...

Aretha Franklin has much R-E-S-P-E-C-T for President Barack Obama — regardless of his spelling skills. At a White House tribute to the "Women of Soul" last Thursday, Obama dropped the initial "E'' when trying to spell out "respect" as the queen of soul does in her famous song. He was spelling out the word as part of Franklin's introduction. "I'm sure the President had much on his agenda and was just a little tired," the 71-year-old singer said in a statement Monday.

President Obama spoke about respect when talking about Aretha Franklin’s famed “RESPECT” song Thursday night at the White House, but he clearly failed to show her that same respect when he spelt the name of her hit song wrong. The White House hosted soul singers for a concert, including Aretha Franklin, who performed at the President’s 2009 Inauguration, Patti LaBelle, and Ariana Grande. President Obama told the crowd, “When Aretha first told us what R-S-P-E-C-T meant to her…” The crowd roared in laughter before allowing the President to finish his introduction. CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE VIDEO

20 Years Later, It Turns Out Dan Quayle Was Right About Murphy Brown And Unmarried Moms Isabel Sawhill May 25. On May 19, 1992, as the presidential campaign season was heating up, Vice President Dan Quayle delivered a family-values speech that came to define him nearly as much as his spelling talents. Speaking at the Commonwealth Club of California, he chided Murphy Brown — the fictional 40-something, divorced news anchor played by Candice Bergen on a CBS sitcom — for her decision to have a child outside of marriage. “Bearing babies irresponsibly is simply wrong,” the vice president said. “Failing...

Saturday’s Good Morning America on ABC devoted a full report to former Vice President Dan Quayle’s son Ben’s run for Congress in Arizona, focusing primarily on perceived gaffes by both him and his father. As anchor John Berman set up the report, he gave the impression that he views the former Vice President primarily as a joke: "It's time to dust off the jokes and hold on to your potatoes. Who can forget the vice presidency of Dan Quayle? His mortal feud with TV's Murphy Brown. His battles with the dictionary. Well, now, one of his children wants to follow...

Like many influential causes before it, the "tea party" movement appeared on the scene uninvited by the political establishment. Democrats in the White House and in Congress recognize it for what it is -- a spontaneous and pointed response to the Obama agenda -- but some Republican leaders still aren't sure what to make of it, as tea partiers have risen on their own and stirred up trouble in GOP primaries. Sometimes in politics it's easier to recognize foes than friends, and this may be why Democrats have been quicker to figure out the movement's potential. They know that in...

The ABC story on Obama's basketball picks consisted of highlights from corporate cousin ESPN's session with Obama as he filled out a big bracket chart, and World News included Obama's spelling challenge. “Should be an R in there,” ESPN's Andy Katz corrected Obama upon spotting how the President had misspelled “Syracuse” as “Sycacuse.”

Someone might want to look into whether an impostor took President Obama's place during his trip to Russia In a release touting an agreement between Obama and President Dmitry Medvedev over how to craft a follow-up to the START arms reduction treaty, the White House claimed the document had been signed by one "Barak Obama." Whoops:

Vice President Biden is about to find out how well his boss can take a joke. The vice president razzed the commander-in-chief Wednesday while speaking at the Air Force Academy commencement ceremony in Colorado, poking fun at President Obama's known affinity for his Teleprompter. Biden made the crack about Obama's crutch after a strong gust of wind blew over one of the vice president's Teleprompters. Biden was talking about Colorado's thin air at the time and when he heard the crash, he added, "and the strong winds." Then he said: "What am I gonna tell the president when I tell...

FAA says low-flying plane over Staten Island is 'pre-planned' flight to take photos by Staten Island Advance Monday April 27, 2009, 10:03 AM A plane, that appears to be a commercial jet tailed by fighter jets, is a "pre-planned" military flight taking photos of the Statue of Liberty, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. Reports indicate it may be Air Force One. "It is pre-planned, pre-coordinated with everyone involved," said FAA spokesman Jim Peters. "It's a military flight over New York to take photos." Peters, who stressed it is not an emergency, said the flight is circling the Statue of...

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano is under fire for what critics see as a string of gaffes, with a small but vocal group of conservatives calling for her to step down. The outrage continues to build over a report from her department that warned of the danger of right-wing "extremists," and singled out returning war veterans as susceptible to recruitment. Napolitano expressed regret for the reference to veterans -- but she raised eyebrows again this week when she suggested that the Sept. 11 hijackers entered the United States through Canada, even though the 9/11 Commission determined they came to the...

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) - President Barack Obama promised Monday to work with other nations "to halt the rise of piracy," while Somali pirates vowed revenge for the deaths of three colleagues shot by snipers during the daring high-seas rescue of an American sea captain. The pirates' threat raised fears for the safety of some 230 foreign sailors still held hostage in more than a dozen ships anchored off lawless Somalia.

President Barack Obama is taking a stand against "the rise of privacy'' in the Indian Ocean. Say what? The president clearly meant the "rise of piracy,'' but his brief statement on the rescue of the American container ship captain held hostage by Somalian pirates came so quickly today that he didn't stop to correct himself. He did note, however, that those "who commit acts of piracy'' must be "held accountable'' for the crime.... (snip) We'll hand one thing to the White House's stenographers, however. Whenever former President George W. Bush tripped over his own tongue, which happened with some frequency,...

[Video, photo, definitions] According to the media we hate, George Bush was a moron for saying, “Nu-cu-lar” (despite the fact that he captained a nu-cu-lar submarine, Jimmy Carter said it the same way). We’re still waiting to hear how stupid Barack Obama is for mispronouncing “defibrillator” on the Tonight Show. Guess the story was simply lost in the flood of mainstream reportage of the President’s “Special Olympics” quip. Oddly enough, ...

Last week, the White House invited me to a signing ceremony overturning the Bush (43) executive order on stem cell research. I assume this was because I have long argued in these columns and during my five years on the President's Council on Bioethics that, contrary to the Bush policy, federal funding should be extended to research on embryonic stem cell lines derived from discarded embryos in fertility clinics. I declined to attend. Once you show your face at these things you become a tacit endorser of whatever they spring. My caution was vindicated. President Bush had restricted federal funding...

Rio de Janeiro (AP) - His meet-and-greet with the U.S. president was bumped to Saturday, and when the White House announced his official visit, they misspelled his name. But when Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva becomes the first Latin American leader to sit down with President Barack Obama this weekend, he brings undisputed clout. Silva runs the world's fifth-most-populous nation and ninth-largest economy and has close ties with leaders across the political spectrum. He's been asked to lobby Obama for free trade on behalf of conservatives in Colombia and for dropping the U.S. embargo against communist Cuba. Even...

CNN’s Sanjay Gupta filled in as host on Larry King Live on Wednesday, six days after ending his bid to be Obama's surgeon general. Despite his medical training, he did not see fit to correct former President Bill Clinton after he repeatedly referred to human embryos as not being fertilized.

When President Obama speaks before Congress and the nation tonight, he will be facing some of his toughest critics. Grammar junkies. Since his election, the president has been roundly criticized by bloggers for using “I” instead of “me” in phrases like “a very personal decision for Michelle and I” or “the main disagreement with John and I” or “graciously invited Michelle and I.” The rule here, according to conventional wisdom, is that we use “I” as a subject and “me” as an object, whether the pronoun appears by itself or in a twosome. Thus every “I” in those quotes ought...